12 Interesting Facts About Dreams

September 13, 20146 min read

Dreams can be mysterious, perplexing, monstrous and sometimes eye opening. Many scientific groups conduct research and experiments to examine better human dreams. The study of dream is known as oneirology. Scientists are trying to get more information about human psychology through dreams. Where do they come from? What do they mean? This study is under progress to know the purpose of our dreams. There are many questions in every mind but we know very less about dreams. Here is a list of some amazing and interesting facts about dreams that you might not know about them.

12. Daydreaming

You don’t have to be asleep to dream. Daydreaming is a short period of time when a person’s contact with physical world become blurred and enters into a fantasy world. There are many types of daydreaming and there is no correct definition of it but all of them have some common characteristics. Some people also considered it a mental problem. A research shows that daydreaming may also help people to solve their problems and achieve success in the future.

11. Universal Dreams

Most of the dreams are based on our personal experiences but a study found that few dreams are more common across the world in different cultures. Due to our most common daily habits, we experience common dreams. We commonly dream about being chased or attacking, falling, feeling frozen, arriving late and unable to move.

10. Animals Also Dream

Have you ever noticed a sleeping dog murmuring in low sound? It is hard to say surely that animals dream but they also have similar sleeping stages that include cycles of REM and NREM sleep. There are many ongoing studies which partially show that animals also dream like humans. You might have seen, they start running in real when they are chasing something in their dream.

9. You Are Paralyzed While Dreaming

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) is a stage of sleep in which dreaming occurs is characterized by paralysis of muscles. It occupies around 25% of adult’s dreams which is about two hours of a full night sleep. During this period, our body is paralyzed to prevent the movements which occur in the dreams in the real world. Experts say that it is normal for everyone and this effect should last up to ten minutes before normal muscles control returns.

8. Everyone Forgets 90% of Their Dreams

Every day we see up to eight or nine dreams but all of us forget 95% of them shortly after waking. Within five minutes of waking, half of dreams are forgotten and within next five minutes, more than 90% are gone. Humans have great memory then why we don’t remember our dreams? According to a source, during sleep our brain does not support the processing information and storage required for dreams.

7. Not Everyone Dreams in Color

Around 80% of people have dreams in colors but a report claimed that approximately 12% sighted people dream in black and white. It is still unknown that the impact of violence and threatening dreams are stronger in color or black and white dreams. There is also an amazing fact that blind people also dream in color.

6. You Can Control Your Dreams

Sometime you see the same dream which you were wondering just before going to sleep. A survey on thousands of people shows that dream control may be a real thing. Around 30% participants said that they can sometimes control their dreams. In these dreams, you are aware that you are dreaming and you are still asleep. During these dreams, you can control what is happening in your dream.

4. Blind People Also Dreams

Most of the people don’t believe that a blind person also dreams. His /her dreams are more complex and vivid as compared to a normal person. Despite the lack of sight, their dreams receive information from other senses such as sound, smell, touch, taste and hearing. Those people who are blind since birth can also see images in their dreams. It is hard for them to imagine but the body’s need for sleep make it happen.

3. Lucid Dreaming

Some dreams are easy to understand by their expressions. Almost everyone have sensual and erotic dreams including both male and female. A study indicates that a normal man gets up to 20 excitements in a dream. The sensations people felt in lucid dreams are considered as strong feeling as the sensations we experienced in the real world. They can have it multiple times a dream and it just happens naturally.

2. Dreams Have Meaning

Dreams are not about what as we see them. All dreams are symbolic and have different meaning from what we see them while sleeping. This topic is still controversial because many scientists still debating the meaning and purposes of dreaming. Dreams have deep symbolic language and our unconscious mind is always trying to compare a dream to something else.

1. Everyone Dreams

Everyone dreams, except few cases, who have a psychological disorder. Both men and women have different dreams and they show different physical reactions. Researchers have found that we have several dreams each night and each one lasting for 5 to 10 minutes. Did you believe that during an average life span, we spend more than six years dreaming. There is an amazing fact that around 70% men tend to dream about other men, and women tend to dream about both men and women.